Full report on my weekend in Düsseldorf:
Friday: My flight was mid-afternoon, so I was able to get up at a tolerable hour for the trip down to LHR. Check-in seems to be a breeze these days (I love e-tickets), then it's the joys of the Terminal 2 Departure Lounge - spot the duff windoze boxes (one display screen with a '1 service failed to start' dialog, another blusecreened and one of the internet cafe's pictures hit with a winpopup spam), laugh at the duty-free prices which contrive to be no cheaper than high-street prices (and sometimes more), the smoking area cunningly place directly below the balcony where the eateries are, etc.
The flight (Lufthansa) was fine and very quick - barely time to serve us drinks and sandwiches, so we landed at DUS pretty much on time. The airport has an interesting layout whereby you have to walk through the departure lounge to get to baggage reclaim (every other airport I've been through keeps arrivals and departures strictly segregated). I was met by Kathryn (a friend I met whilst visiting my sister on Reunion) and her brother James (who I met when they came up to Oxford); Kathryn's friend Kate came in on a flight a few minutes later, and it was off into town.
Thus began our fun with Düsseldorf's public transport system (you name it, they have it) which never quite seemed to have the expected stereotypical German Efficiency. I was somewhat surprised by the presence of an (admittedly tiny) first class section on an underground train, but as it turned out to in fact be the S-Bahn (suburban railway, I guess), that's not so strange. Another thing I spotted early on was the recycling push - in the airport, on platforms etc all rubbish bins were segregated - paper, glass etc. A tram and five flights of stairs got us to Kathryn's flat.
Time to start cooking (and drinking) - chicken curry (hence the Naan bread stashed in my luggage) for us plus one of Kathryn's colleagues David and his girlfriend Yutte (I have no idea how to spell her name. The curry was fine, but there were considerable problems with the rice - it nearly got forgotten and ended up as one large congealed lump. Tasted OK, though. In the mean time, the six of us polished off five bottles of wine and half a bottle of Martini while agonising over the decision as to whether or not to go pubbing.
A few minutes later finds us standing in the rain waiting for a tram not to turn up. Time to call a taxi. By the cunningness of having a couple of pop-up rear-facing seats (with full 3-point belts!) in the boot, we all managed to fit in and head into the Altstadt (said taxi also had it's fare meter as a projection onto the rear-view mirror. All it needed was the speedo projected onto the windscreen...)
This particular section of Düsseldorf seems to have almost as high a density of Irish pubs as Dublin. Our first stop was Bei Fatty, where we managed a couple of drinks before giving up due to "Musical differences". Four of us moved on to McLaughlin's for one more drink before heading back to the flat (stairs less fun now) where I staked out my sleeping bag on a nice patch of floor.
Saturday: Not a desperately late start as the Ladies had a shopping expedition planned, but by the time we'd all crawled out of bed and taken turns with the bathroom it was still getting on for midday. Thankfully, the trams were with us and we got into town without too much hassle. Then it was time for the fun of being Bloke Waiting by Changing Rooms, but thankfully not for too long.
Lunch was the frightfully German McDonalds - annoyingly, they've started putting salad in with the quarter pounders since I was last in the country (I can't stand salad in burgers - or in fact in any kind of sandwich, hot or cold. This is a constant source of annoyance to me) so I was reduced to having a pair of cheeseburgers. Plus the fries were overdone. And since when do the loos in fast food "restaurants" have attendants who need tipping?
Post-lunch shopping was somewhat curtailed due to the fact that none of us was really feeling up to it, so plan B was to head back to the flat for some more kip. Plan C involved watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off first (we love that film). Despite that distraction, we still managed to get a couple of hours' flaking out before it was time to get tarted up and head off. Trams, again, were on our side.
This time, we went straight to McLaughlins where we were later joined by David & girlfriend plus various other people whose names I never really caught. It was time to get started on an evening of heavy drinking - alternating shots with long drinks. The DJ was playing a selection of 70s/80s/90s music which was pretty much to my taste (if not everyone else's) and the (rather small) dance floor we were by began to pick up the occasional reveller, who got a dismayed reaction from some of my companions.
I had to open my big mouth with my usual "be thankful they're not playing Abba" line. And sure enough, three or four tracks later, along comes the 'Thank Abba for the Music" medley, and I have no choice but to prove that I am the Dancing Queen... (I'm a great believer in "Dance lie nobody's watching", and while I generally do that only when there is, indeed, nobody watching, all it takes is the right music and a few other people on the dance floor. That night, I also got YMCA, I Will Survive and a good half-dozen other tracks worthy of making an arse of myself to).
Eventually, we moved on, and had another drink at Fatty's and then a third Irish pub before Kathryn and I decided to leave the other two alone and head back to the flat (this is at around 2am). The trams were still on form and got us most of the way, leaving only a 10 minute walk in the pouring rain. And those five flights of stairs. As it happened, we barely had time to get into bed (I mean beds, get your mind out of the gutter) before the doorbell rang to signal that the other two were back, although they seemed to take a very long time to get up the stairs...
Drinks tally (approximate, not in order)
- 3 x Slippery Nipple (Baileys and Sambuca)
- 1 x Smirnoff Ice
- 1 x Bloody Horse (Vodka & Grenadine)
- 5 x Jack Daniels and Coke
- 1 x Tequila
- 4 x Springbok (Crème de Menthe and Baileys)
- 2 x Baileys
Sunday: Needless to say, an early start wasn't even close to being on the cards. We all slept fairly late and (half) got up at around eleven. Watched Léon (another cool film) before heading out to the airport as both James and Kate were flying out that afternoon. Lunch was ... at the airport ... don't really want to say more. Some amusement to be had from watching people (one small kid in particular) trying to figure out which of the segregated bins to put their rubbish in.
By the time the departing pair were bundled off towards their flights, the afternoon was getting on, so it was back to the flat before heading once more pub-wards, because Sunday night is Quiz Night! Of course, being in an Irish pub, the questions were in English with German translations pretty much an afterthought. The Desperados consisted of Me, Kathryn, David and another of their work Colleagues (hey, I'm not good with names).
We started well (after 1 round, we were in (possibly joint) first place by virtue of a special mention for being the only team to know (or, in fact, guess) that May is the only month named after a Roman Goddess), by half time, we had slipped to third, but only three points off the lead. Unfortunately, after a disastrous round six (one point) and a fairly poor showing the music round, we ended up in eighth, despite a decent performance in the picture round (screenshots of classic video games!)
Question of the night: What film had 48 extras die within a year of filming?
Monday: An early start, as my hostess had to head off to work, so it wasn't even nine by the time we were headed off on our separate trams. Of course, the bizarreness of the universe ensured that despite heading off in perpendicular directions, within 5 minutes of disembarking we walk straight past each other. 'Tis a small world. I spent the morning wandering around the city, taking in some of the sights, strolling up and down by the Rhine and buying a few CDs. Not wanting to repeat Sunday's mistake, I went to Pizza Hut before heading out to the airport again.
Sitting in the departure lounge gave me the chance to do some more reading (not really something I seem to find as much time as I'd like for these days) before catching the 'plane back home. Not really much more to tell - some nice aerial views of night-time London on the way in to land and getting out of the airport at a record speed - in time to just miss the next Oxford coach.
After three nights on the floor, I'm definitely looking forward to sleeping in a bed tonight.
November 4 2002, 20:04:44 UTC 18 years ago
I am shocked by the thought of you having 17 drinks over the course of a day. Quite a bit of mixing, too, even if nine of them were Baileys variants.
How much did the whole shebang cost? Did you get your Star Alliance frequent flyer miles?
November 5 2002, 14:40:26 UTC 18 years ago
It doesn't happen very often, tho', which is part of the reason why I'm stumped by my lack of inebriation compared to people who drink more than I do. It must be something to do with the type of drink - one pint of cider would have me feeling much drunker than the entire fleet of drinks I had on Sunday. I guess that the spirits don't do it for me. Either that or I became a bizarre freak of nature for the evening. No frequent flyer miles as I don't fry frequently (at least with the same airline) and couldn't be bothered to go through the whole sign-up process. I guesstimate the total cost at around £250, around half on travel and half on ... everything else (being more financially able, I was happy to pay for more than my fair share of rounds).